I am fundraising to build interactive reading spaces in low resource learning centers for underprivileged urban primary school students.

Story

Why are we fundraising?

The WordsWorth Project came out as a self designed project from our personal narratives. A combination of early childhood memories surrounded by books and reading, volunteering experiences and a belief that every child deserves equal opportunity was interwoven into our planning for the project.

The idea that tackling language competency would result in the largest gains in learning outcomes forms the backbones of the project. This is because language is the medium through which all subjects are taught and any improvement in the former will spill over.

The WordsWorth Project looks to create fun reading spaces for children stocked with levelled storybooks by indigenous publishers. With an understanding that our responsibility does not end there, we have volunteer intervention to help map individual child progress.

What do we plan to do with the funds?

Currently running on a non-profit model, all donations are utilised in our project to meet our expansion and operational plans.

The WordsWorth Project currently functions in the 5 reading spaces in collaboration with the following learning centres:

1. Shiksha Rath - A flagship programme of the Touch India Trust, works with children from the slums near North Campus in Delhi. Shiksha Rath provides a creative space for after school classes, meals and health care through their Shiksha Rath Academy for younger children and Shiksha Rath Tutorials for the older children. The WordsWorth Project works twice a week in their space helping over 70 children ranging from 4 years to 15 years from the Tutorial and Academy to read.

2. The Magic Room - The Magic Room is a community center started by a bunch of Teach for India Fellows in Adarsh Nagar. The WordsWorth Project intervenes in the space for creating reading support for 30 children. Currently it caters to children from TFI classroom, The WordsWorth Project aims to reach out to more children from the community.

3. Manzil - Located in Khan Market, Manzil is a familiar non-profit organization in the Delhi space with its origins dating back to 1996. Every Friday, a bunch of WordsWorth volunteers interact with 15 children from Manzil. With children here much closer to grade levels, the focus of The WordsWorth Project here is to make them engage more with written material and expand their vocabulary base.

4. South Ex - An independent learning space in South Ex, with the help of a social worker brought together children from nearby economically weaker communities for remedial after school classes. The WordsWorth Project assists her efforts in language teaching through a set of indigenous books and volunteer support.

5. Aarohan - Aarohan, a learning center + livelihood space in Shahdara was the first location The WordsWorth Project began its operations in. Aarohan came out of Teach for India community project and has been around for more than two years. The children have flexibility in deciding what they wish to learn. The WordsWorth Project owes the location for allowing early experimentation of processes. It continues to work with 40 kids at Aarohan.

How can you help us?

How can one help?
Donate a Library - With Rs. 20,000 you can donate a library to the project or alternatively line our shelves with 100 books with Rs. 8,000
Sponsor a Child - Rs. 1,000 will cover the cost incurred per child to bring them the reading space.
Connect - Know a children's author who would love to do a story telling session? Anyone who can give their time and expertise to the project? Know how we can reach out to potential volunteers?
Contibute - Any amount that will go towards making our dream a reality.

Visit us at www.thewordsworthproject.org to know more about us and our work.